America’s Debt to the Finns

Sept. 5, 2014

Re “Finland’s lesson for Ukraine” (Opinion, Sept. 3): René Nyberg’s article strikes rare notes of clarity at a time of great confusion as to how the West should best respond to Russian aggression in Ukraine. As one of Russia’s eternal neighbors, Finland alone is serene and secure. Why? Because it won Stalin’s respect by its ferocious defense against Soviet invasion in 1940-41, while Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia collapsed and were absorbed into the Soviet bloc.

Finland was strictly neutral, never joined the Warsaw Pact, and was Russia’s largest Western trading partner well into the 1970s. But it quietly reached out to Vice President George H.W. Bush, invited him to Helsinki in 1983, and set up a channel through which the United States was clearly informed of Mikhail Gorbachev’s emergence as a moderate Russian leader. When Mr. Bush met Mr. Gorbachev at Konstantin Chernenko’s funeral in 1985, he immediately sent a message to President Ronald Reagan, saying that the U.S.-Soviet relationship could be fundamentally changed.

We owe a great deal to the Finns for conveying that information to us, and should listen to them today.

Donald P. Gregg, Armonk, N.Y.

The writer was national security adviser to Vice President George H.W. Bush from 1982 to 1988, and U.S. ambassador to South Korea from 1989 to 1993.

Humanity in the secret files

Re “Under Beijing’s eyes” (Opinion, Aug. 19): Murong Xuecun’s story about his personal secret file kept by the Chinese authorities was similar to mine. In 1961, I was a conscript in the Czechoslovak Army being transferred between garrisons. Similar to Murong, I was handed a sealed envelope containing my secret file, with the instruction to give it to my next commanding officer, and with a warning not to open it. Open it I did. Like the writer, I was surprised by the kind and largely untrue comments by my teachers regarding my excellent socialist behavior.

There was also a report by a rather simple lady who was the janitor of the Prague apartment building where I had lived. I copied it and committed it to memory. Here it is: “Jan Volavka is of Jewish origin, but otherwise a very decent boy. His light is on late at night. I suspect he is reading.”

Bless her.

Jan Volavka, Big Sky, Mont.

The writer is a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine.